Attorney-at-law Ann-Marie Bishop Hearne sees the results of poor parenting in the courts.

Success in the classroom and good behaviour are two things all parents like to see in their children.

Coming out of the Flair's Portmore Women's Forum on October 30, some students of Portmore have trouble doing both, and the discipline factor affects their grades.

"Some of the school children are very rude and use adult language, but that's not unique to Portmore. It springs from the home or peer group," said Fay Davis, who has a teenage daughter. On the home front, parents don't spend as much time as before monitoring their child's progress.

"There is a lot of failing in our schools. Parents have become very busy ... and are guilty of letting children have their own way," said Anne-Marie Bishop Hearne. In her legal work, Bishop Hearne says she sees many young people come to family court on various charges, and she recommends bail so they will not miss school. The absentee father syndrome is also evident.

Stop the blame game

The forum participants believe parents should stop blaming the government for everything, and instead tackle the problem with government and the school.

"Parents need to stop being afraid of their children," stressed Bishop Hearne, who advocated a few slaps when necessary. She also recommended intervention tactics to force them to look at the potential results of their actions.

"These children need a reality check. We need to take them to a children's home or prison and let them see the conditions to wake them up." The women advocated searching school bags for weapons and other illegal items. They also recommended that parents keep up with the latest technology, to be able to monitor their children's Internet usage.

"As a parent, you can't tell me that your child has privacy in their bedroom," said Bishop Hearne.

On a separate education issue, Flair posed an idea of rebranding the Portmore high schools like Bridgeport High, for example, into branches of the popular ones in the Corporate Area like Campion College. The women were against it as they believed the municipality's schools were more than capable of providing good education, and needed some of the financial resources that the more famous and popular schools receive.